Things shaping up in terms of prophetic stage-setting, particularly regarding Israel, should strike us as crucial. By this, I mean things prophesied for the time just before Christ’s Second Advent are in precise configuration for the very dénouement of the Church Age.

Nothing could be more crucial now than preparation in the Jewish mind and spiritual heart for constructing the Third Temple.

Increasing noise of constructing that end-times edifice is coming from that nation’s leadership.

Consider the following excerpt from an article that originated in that prophetic nation.

Israel’s defense minister and head of the New Right party, Naftali Bennett, spoke to a Yeshiva (male seminary) in northern Israel on Wednesday criticizing a political rival who Bennett claims doesn’t treat Israel’s state institutions as playing an integral role in the Redemption process.

Bennett then lamented what he sees as a current attitude of lawlessness in Israel saying that the reason that the Second Temple was destroyed was because everyone “followed their own rules.”

“We need to understand the big picture” Bennett said, adding “today we are in (the era of) the Third Temple.”

Bennett then reminded the captive audience about the history of the Kingdom of Israel, saying “we have had a state twice where we ruled as a united people. The first time it only lasted 80 years—King David 40, then King Solomon 40. After that, we separated.”

“The second time, we were sovereign for only 74 years during the Hasmonean dynasty” he added.

Bennett, then [touched] on the present, saying “Now we are at 72 years. The Jewish nation has never been able to maintain a united rule for more than 80 years.”

The Defense Minister concluded saying that he will not let “anyone tear apart the state of Israel.” (David Sidman, “Israel’s Defense Minister: We Are Now in Era of Third Temple,” Breaking Israel News, February 13, 2020)

The defense minister’s assessment is one I hadn’t considered. Israel has never gone more than eighty years with a united leadership—that is, with a connected government. They are but eight years from a record in that regard.

What does it mean? I haven’t a clue. But the timing of all things is a fascinating exercise in considering Heaven’s timeline for bringing a close to this Age of Grace.

One of the great Hebrew eschatological scholars of our time wrote a compelling piece on the coming Third Temple some years ago.

The significance of Israel’s reinstituting the Sanhedrin may be another event that leaves in place the possibility of how the Lord will work out His will with His people. Almost sixty years after a 1900-year absence, the nation of Israel came into existence. Jewish people from the four corners of the world have made aliyah to live in the Land. The Temple Institute in Jerusalem has reconstructed the instruments for Jewish Temple worship; Jewish men determined to be descendants of Aaron, known as the Kohanim, are being trained in ritual practices to serve as Temple priests; and now we have the establishment of an authoritative body to speak to the nation of Israel on matters of Jewish religion. This is significant in light of such passages as Zechariah 12:10 and Hosea 5:15, which speak of a time when the people of Israel will be led into the acceptance of Jesus as their Messiah. The existence of a religious authority for the entire nation will facilitate the multitudes coming to faith. (Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Ariel Ministries Newsletter, Fall 2004/Winter 2005, p. 4)

One of today’s foremost scholars in end-times prophecy, Dr. Thomas Ice, concludes the following about the timing of rebuilding the Temple atop Mount Moriah:

In spite of contemporary turmoil, Israel’s Third Temple will one day be rebuilt.… Daniel 9:24-27; Matthew 24:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:4; Revelation 11:1-2; 13:14-15. Few observers of world events ever thought Israel would become a nation again, but it did occur in 1948. Yet, there will be a rebuilt temple by the middle of the seven-year tribulation in order to facilitate the fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

I have often taught that the long-awaited permission for the Jews to rebuild their Temple will likely be part of the covenant between Antichrist and Israel that starts the seven-year tribulation after the rapture. It appears to me that the Temple will be rebuilt and supervised supernaturally by the two witnesses during the first half of the tribulation. Since one of the two witnesses will most likely be Elijah, this would mean that the ministry of Elijah should tell us more about the ministry of the two witnesses. Malachi 4:4-5 says, “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. An he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse.” Perhaps the ministry of Elijah, where he will help the Jewish people “get right with God,” before the return of the Lord will involve their Third Temple, until commandeered by Antichrist.

Regardless of how the Lord works out the details, His plan will be brought to pass. In the meantime, many of the current events now taking place in and around Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are setting the stage for what will be a string of events that will usher in the second coming of Christ. Meanwhile, the church is looking for the rapture, where Christ will take us in an instant to be with Himself for all eternity. (Dr. Thomas Ice, “Is It Time for The Temple?” Rapture Ready archives)

The building of the Third Temple is as good as done. God has pronounced its rebuilding, and nothing can stop or inhibit its construction. It’s all within His perfect timing.

In the days to come, The Mount of Hashem‘s House Shall stand firm above the mountains And tower above the hills; And all the nations Shall gaze on it with joy. (Isaiah 2: 2)

When witnessing things going on in the American political world over the past months, one can but come to one conclusion: The Lord is at work directing all things into eschatological channels of His own design.

Those who adamantly oppose godliness are mostly on the side of one political party. They are for everything the Lord in Heaven says He is against. God is making that opposition clear by confusing them for all the world to see.

This opposition party to God’s desires for human conduct adheres to going against the Lord’s key principles of life: They are for murder of the unborn and even those just born—i.e., they are for abortion under the guise of giving the woman the right to choose. They are champions of men having sexual relations with other men and women having sexual relations with other women.

This is happening even under the auspices of the so-called clergy who approve of this unbiblical activity. They define marriage as being, basically, anything one wants it to be—a man can marry another man or a woman another woman. Even more insanely, some have been given the go-ahead by these anti-God adherents to marry their animals or even inanimate objects of their affection.

In earlier times, reports of things going on under this “progressive” mindset would have defied logic. But now, the abnormal—even abhorrent—activity is seen by these anti-God forces as not only okay, but as more mainstream in propriety than the formerly truly normal human activity.

I refer, for example, to the views that have been developing regarding pedophilia. Even courses in academia at the university level now hold that including children in sexual activity with adults is to be “normed”—not considered psychological dysfunction or criminal activity, but just an alternate way of looking at things.

As we’ve looked at before in these commentaries, people are now perfectly “normal” if they consider themselves to be a gender other than what their birth certificate shows. By this, they’re saying that the Creator didn’t know what He was doing. He has no right to declare who is man, who is woman, or whatsoever else they want to be, I guess.

Grade-school children and even younger are being subjected to transvestites who try to lure them into becoming such as themselves. Parents are considered by the “progressive” mindset as being the haters and evil holdouts to human advancement if they oppose having their children inculcated in such a manner.

The party of choice among these anti-God forces applauds and holds up as icons of the new wave of society and culture a presidential candidate who kisses his “husband” on stage at political rallies. The mainstream news and entertainment media embrace this as normal and even preferable. By this, they applaud shaking off the bonds of godly restraint as put forth in God’s Holy Word.

Democrat candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg, an avowed homosexual married to another male, has voiced the “progressive” thinking in wishing to throw off godly restraints as America moves forward in history.

He said recently that he condemned Vice President Mike Pence’s view of morality and Christianity. He declared that America must change from its narrow definition of morality by saying it’s time to move on from that old mode, to something that is more “inclusive” and “humane.”

By this it means he is unhappy with those who are against the lifestyle of the LGBTQ (and P for pedophile) community because of narrow-minded belief in biblical precepts for godly living.

That he is in favor of throwing off all these moralistic bands that inhibit people from doing what is right in their own eyes is the message.

Mayor Buttigieg is but one of many within today’s Democrat Party who expresses opposition to God’s way of conducting life. We remember recent comments by one of the campaign planners for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. He declared, in a video secretively obtained by the Veritas organization, that if Sanders and associates are elected, he will immediately and summarily kill some who oppose them. He will then make sure, he said, that others are sent to retraining camps to get their minds right. Still others would be locked away in labor camp gulags, never again to interfere with progressive movement.

Make no mistake, the evil that inspired the Nazi thugs of Hitler’s time continues to interact with the would-be diabolists of these troubled times. If given the chance, they would do exactly what this campaign associate of one of the leading Democrat candidates promises. This is not to say that all who are in that political party are of the same mindset as this campaign worker. But, neither were many in 1930s Germany of the same mindset as the Nazis and their Fuhrer.

The mindset just described as growing in our time is a reminder of just where this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline. The Lord had something to say about the ultimate outcome of such rebellion.

His Word begins with a question, then gives a devastating answer to all who would throw off the moral restraints He has prescribed.

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. (Psalms 2:1–7)

The one who will judge this rebellious world is none other than the person God declares to be His Son in this prophecy.

We have watched God have the opposition political party in almost complete derision this past week and even in earlier times. It is but a foretaste of things to come when, at the end of this age, the Lord Jesus Christ will judge all whom He calls “earth dwellers”—those who are in rebellion against Him.

The entire world is on high alert because of the coronavirus that is spreading quickly. More than six hundred have died from the disease as of this writing. China, the country from which it emanates, has millions of people under quarantine.

There is no known cure, and experts report that it will possibly take years to develop a vaccine to cure or prevent its spread. Agencies responsible for controlling the virus fear a pandemic—a worldwide spread of the deadly disease.

Air travel makes the spread of the virus almost impossible to curtail. American Airlines is reportedly being sued by its employees in order to prevent the company from sending crews around the world, placing them at risk for exposure.

The fear generated by the spread of coronavirus affected not only the worldwide medical industry, but also the global economy.

Friday, January 31, the Dow Jones Industrial Averages closed down around 600 points. This generated anxiety among some who are already predicting any-moment global financial collapse. It caused one observer to weigh in with increased forewarnings. The day before the 600-point decline, he wrote:

In the light of the Coronavirus, which is spreading with no end in sight, more people are feeling compelled to ask the question, will the global economy fail? Some are predicting that the global economy, including the US economy will fail due to the introduction of new factors such as the Coronavirus…

Before the introduction of the Coronavirus, the global economy was already in deep trouble. What people should know is that back in December of 2019, before the Coronavirus went active, the global economy was on the verge of collapse…

Many economists that I have spoken to are concerned that the global economy will continue to decline as a result of the Coronavirus. Do these fears have merit? It does not matter. Perception drives reality. If the people on this planet believe that their health is threatened by this virus, the global economy, already on thin ice, will collapse. (Dave Hodges, “Will the Coronavirus Cause a Global Economic Collapse? The BDI Says Yes!” January 30, 2020)

The economy snapped back in an almost flabbergasting way this week. It seems even this world-wide threat can’t hold back the tremendous perception that  a profound economic boom is still on the upswing.

It is my belief more intensely than ever that the Rapture will occur in the midst of just such an economic boom as is presently perceived.

To some prophecy watchers, this newest of the threats to millions around the world is yet another of the converging signs that the end of the age is at hand. It ranks up there with earthquakes taking place daily, like the one a couple of weeks ago so powerful that it was felt strongly in Miami.

Bible prophecy, of course, tells that such virulent diseases will be prevalent during the Tribulation, the last seven years preceding Christ’s Second Advent. Jesus briefed His disciples about this coming assault as He sat on the Mount of Olives just before His crucifixion:

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. (Matthew 24:7, 8)

My friend Chuck Missler, one of the great prophecy teachers, spoke about this passage. I remember listening with fascination while he waxed eloquent on what he thought the word “pestilence” in Jesus’ foretelling might mean. He equated the term to one found in another prophetic Scripture:

I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.(Revelation 6: 8)

Chuck, as I recall, postulated that the word “pestilence” in Jesus’ Olivet Discourse might be the same as the words “wild beasts” in the Revelation 6: 8 passage about the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

He put forth the thought that “wild beasts” could well mean what he termed “micro-beasts”—i.e., not necessarily only literal, four-footed animals like lions and bears, but perhaps voracious, flesh-eating and destroying entities that can be seen only under powerful microscopes. He suggested the term might indicate microbes—germs—of such virulence that they could not be detected or destroyed before they have done their deadly work.   

Missler wrote:

There was a time not long ago when the medical profession felt they had most of the major diseases licked, and for the rest it was just a matter of time.

Now that former optimism appears tragically premature. Many of the previously “defeated” diseases are making a comeback, in hardier strains which are resisting our former treatments.…

The rapidity with which diseases, emergent or deliberate, can pass through our “global village” is terrifyingly real.

With modern air travel and global commerce, as well as our present understanding of modern biotechnology, the Biblical predictions now seem frighteningly imminent. (“Emergent and Deliberate Diseases,” Koinonia House, February 1, 1998)

The world’s top biological scientists and medical professionals have done much to defeat new and mutating bacteria and viruses since Missler wrote about these matters years ago. However, rather than stopping the progress of these “micro-beasts,” all efforts have been ineffective. for the most part. The ”beasts” are proliferating and are becoming more virulent.

Daniel’s prophecy about exponential travel (Daniel 12: 4) is now on an ever-increasing pathway to fulfillment, greatly escalating the ability of the micro-beasts to invade new human hosts around the globe. Yet, we haven’t reached that time of Tribulation forewarned by Jesus while He answered the disciple’s questions about what the future holds.

Nonetheless, the coronavirus is certainly an indicator to add to all the other signals of that time just ahead, about which Jesus declared:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:21)     

This commentary is written as the Trump administration’s long-awaited peace plan in the Middle East apparently is on its way. As a result, tensions on Mt. Moriah—the Temple Mount—are building.

President Trump said Thursday, January 23, 2020, that he will likely announce the plan before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz’s visit to the US on Tuesday, January 28.

He told reporters while on a flight to Florida that the announcement would come “sometime prior to that…probably, we’ll release it a little bit prior to [the Israelis’ visit].”

He later walked back the statement, tweeting that the timeline was purely speculative at this point.

If those plans are ultimately carried through, however, it will be not only a significant event for what’s going on politically in America, but, more importantly in terms of heaven’s considerations, something that will rivet the attention of those who watch for prophetic stage-setting.

The Muslim world in particular is already up in arms, emotionally at least. Israel, of course, is at the center of rage and volatility.

Tensions were high on the Temple Mount amid calls for mass attendance at Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque and reports that the Trump Administration’s Deal of the Century peace plan would be released within the week.

Israeli security forces arrested multiple Palestinian activists in Jerusalem and dispersed worshipers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, as Palestinians continued to call for mass attendance at Friday dawn prayers at holy sites throughout the West Bank and Gaza. At least two people were injured on the Temple Mount as police used stun grenades and rubber bullets, according to the Palestinian Quds news. One worshiper was arrested. (“Tensions High on Temple Mount Amid Peace Plan Reports,” Jerusalem Post, Rapture Ready News, January 24, 2020)

The Deal of the Century, as it has become known, has long been on the Trump administration’s agenda. The Israel-hating Muslim world and the overwhelmingly anti-Israel forces prevalent in the UN know that this president follows up on promises. This has doubly ratcheted up tensions surrounding Trump’s comment to reporters.

Indications are strong that something is indeed in the making, because actions to prepare for probable troubles began well in advance of the president’s remark.

Preparations for possible clashes began even before initial reports about the possible imminent release of the Deal of the Century. Israel Police signed orders to keep Palestinian activists from the site due to fears that clashes could break out similarly to last week, when similar calls were made for mass attendance for Friday prayers at the mosque. Police have been instructed to disperse any disturbances by force. (Ibid.)

Hamas called for the world of Islam to come to alert. In a press release, the organization declared:

 The Israeli occupation’s attempts to judaize Jerusalem and holy sites are an alarming sign that must prompt our Arab and Islamic Ummah (community), along with the free people of the world to intervene immediately. We call for similar Fajr prayers to be organized in all Arab and Islamic capitals for the sake of Al-Aqsa and holy places in Palestine.

As any Middle East observer knows, when it comes to the Muslim world, the actions taken rarely stay within the boundaries of “prayers.” Any action by the president in conjunction with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government will be met with elevated hostility. In the matter of laying out the areas surrounding the Temple Mount, there is a potential for war, bringing the millions of the Muslim world into the fray.

This is the fear of UN diplomats and the geopoliticians. However, it is not the fear of students of Bible prophecy. All-out war will not occur—at least, not in the sense of world-rending calamity.

A peace of sorts will be made, the “false peace” of Daniel 9:26–27. It will indeed bring on all-out war, the war called Armageddon.

And this is what we who are prophecy students and observers of world issues and events must caution: That “false peace” will initiate man’s greatest of all wars.

Joel, the prophet, gave the lethal formula that will produce this final war of the age. We’ve looked at it many times:

I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (Joel 3:2)

We who observe end-times issues and events in light of God’s Word must urge President Trump about the deadly folly of “parting” God’s chosen land to try to make peace in the region. We hope the president listens to voices like Dr. Robert Jefress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas. These, we hope, will inform the president in explicit terms. Don’t be complicit in setting the stage for producing the deadly “peace” predicted by Daniel the prophet.

Today’s article came about as a most profound heavenly influence. Because it involves matters deeply personal in terms of family relationships, I must include details in an oblique way.

In beginning the search for a subject to address, I settled on the topic you see above: “Satan’s Wrath, God’s Wrath.” My thought was to contrast the two kinds of anger and their methods of imposition upon humanity.

No sooner had I settled on how to begin, the heavenly influence I mentioned made it clear why I was prompted to choose the topic I had already chosen.

A message from a family member that was disturbing immediately sent me into the position of prayer to address the Father about the matter at hand. By the time my prayer was finished, the impression that I received was forthcoming. I knew instantly that the assault causing the problem was from our ever-present enemy; Satan and his minions were at work.

The old serpent is working his nefarious evil to circumvent God’s protection over me, personally. Satan, for God’s own reasons, can’t directly get at me for the moment, so he is attacking those I love with all my heart.

I’m not one who claims to hear the literal voice of God or have constant, ecstatic experiences or heavenly interventions. As a matter of fact, I think I’m too much the other way. I’ve expressed on many occasions that the Good Friday 2011 clinical death I experienced after a widow-maker heart attack and the subsequent visit to the heavenly environs was something that went against my stodgy, Baptist sensibility.

But, it is a flawed sensibility, I now know. The Lord does indeed intervene—sometimes in dramatic, even spectacular, ways. I’m still wary—I believe properly so—about claims of supernatural experiences, but God does intervene.

He did so in the genesis of this commentary, as I’ve said.

The thrust of this article was and is to point out the evil within Satan’s wrath and the absolute purity and goodness of God’s wrath. 

As many who read these articles know, I believe we’ve been witnessing, through the political goings-on in America before and after the 2016 presidential elections, Satan’s wrath. The old serpent’s plans to build the platform for his so-called New World Order have been disrupted. The installing of a man in the office of president who believes in national borders and sticking to constitutional principles has taken Satan off his game plan.

The result is infectious rage. It has metastasized within the US and world populations to great extent, driving those who mostly oppose godly principles of personal and governmental conduct into a reprobate mindset. They call good evil, and evil good. Satan’s wrath is thus manifest for all to observe.

It is directed at all who oppose his desire to completely do away with anything godly. This is why anti-Semitism is again underway and growing. It will reach levels that even will exceed Hitler’s hatred for God’s chosen people.

Satan’s wrath is why hatred against Christians is progressing geometrically. The following news item illustrates:

Shortly before President Trump signed phase one of the historic trade deal with China, a Chinese pastor described the fear and intimidation believers are enduring under the Communist government.

“The Chinese government has now placed severe restrictions and policies on the house churches asking neighbors to spy on one another, pressuring school teachers and college professors to betray and sign a statement to denounce their own faith as well to do the same to students,” Pastor Jean Zhu said.

Zhu described the Chinese government’s alarming actions as Christian persecution has continued to spread around the world…

Some 260 million Christians have been living in areas of high persecution — that’s one in eight believers worldwide — an increase of 10 percent compared to last year, according to the watchdog group Open Doors USA’s 2020 World Watch List.

“The drivers of persecution are still very significantly entrenched. Islamic extremism is spreading in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia,” David Curry, the president and CEO of Open Doors USA, told Fox News. “Then you add this rise of surveillance Every year, Open Doors USA, a bipartisan grassroots organization, has released a list of the 50 most dangerous countries for Christians. North Korea topped the list for the 19th year in a row, but China became the focus this year because of its forced labor camps and oppression of Uighur Muslims that’s expected to spread and worsen. (Caleb Parke, “Christians see ‘alarming’ trend worldwide as China builds ‘blueprint of persecution’,” Fox News, January 18, 2020)

Satan’s rage is also seen in every direction in America one looks. Businesses are boycotted and have lawsuits filed against them because of “hate crimes”—for example, bakeries that refuse to prepare wedding cakes displaying that the marriage is same-sex suffer public obloquy. Restaurants are sued because their owners support biblical precepts when it comes to homosexuality or right-to-life issues contrary to abortion activists’ demands. The anti-Christian forces display, with increasing vigor, Satan’s hatred and wrath.

God’s Word warns of that rage and wrath:

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:12–13)

Satan’s wrath sits heavily upon humanity because he wants to destroy God’s creation called mankind. His wrath is steeped totally in hatred. God’s wrath, by contrast, is the ultimate expression of His absolute love for mankind.

He so loved us that He poured out His wrath on His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He did so while Jesus hung on that old, rugged cross and took on all the past, present, and future sin of the world. God did this so that anyone who accepts Christ’s substitutionary, sin-death sacrifice as His grace gift for salvation will be saved—once and forever.

God—Jesus Christ, Himself—will one eternal day do away with sin and rebellion forever at the “Great White Throne,” where God’s mighty judgment and wrath will express His perfect love. There will be no more sin and death—forever.

He has promised that ultimate expression of His love through His Holy Word. John wrote the following:

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. (Revelation 21:5-7)

The state of the economic condition of America and the world is often the subject of conversation in and around my office environs. One of our financial “experts,” whose name you would recognize, consistently voices our collective amazement. The comment goes something like: “The economy being in this building bubble for so long, without a massive correction, is unprecedented.”

We all agree that is true, and that the fact has to go far beyond the natural world of fiscal reality. The economy is propped up, we conjecture, held up by supernatural rather than natural forces.

By this, we who are in our ”conflab” sessions (yes, I know the word is confab, not conflab) mean we believe the holdup of the crash that is inevitable, according to all that is part of reality, has some heavenly determined purpose.

Again, I wrote of this as far back as 2010. I wrote that I was convinced–and remain so—that neither the United States nor the world would experience a crash of catastrophic dimension, at least not during this dispensation—the dispensation of grace (Church Age).

Those who emailed during 2010–2011 expressed that some in secular media as well as high-profile prophecy teachers were predicting any-day financial collapse. We would one morning awaken to a world like in that of the Dark Ages, economically speaking, the emailers feared.

My series at the time, “Scanning a Fearful Future,” involved ten  articles on Rapture Ready that painted a different picture. I believe I was impressed by the Holy Spirit that such a collapse was not going to occur—at least not at that time.

I’m still impressed that such a dire situation is not in the offing—not yet, at least.

A recent opinion piece shed some light on the matters I believe are involved in consideration of the economy and biblical perspective. The article sets the stage for prophetic eventuality.

Financial writer and book author John Rubino sees the world careening toward a debt reset at an increasing pace.

Rubino explains, “The coming monetary reset and what that means for gold and what that means for the rest of the global financial system, you don’t need a war to bring that about because we are making enough financial mistakes that will get us there in no time flat now without geopolitical turmoil….”

“If you add a big war in the Middle East into the equation, then anything can happen. A scenario right now that is very, very feasible is we start shooting in the Middle East and Russia and China is on the other side of this in one way or another. They help Iran, and we have our allies helping us, and we start using these next generation weapons that are breathtakingly powerful. Nobody has any idea what’s going to happen when we start throwing these things at each other…. Oil spikes to $100—$150 per barrel, and that tips the already extremely fragile global financial system over the edge. So, we get the ‘Greater Depression’ or the monetary reset or a hyperinflation or whatever we get sooner rather than later. It’s a disaster for everybody when it happens that way.” (Tyler Durden, “The End Stage Has Begun,” Rubino Warns “We’re Past The Point Of No Return” Zero Hedge, Rapture Ready News, January 10, 2020)

The writer is correct. Such a scenario—or scenarios—would, it seems, bring American and world economies into an era that would likely eclipse, in disastrous ramifications, the Great Depression of the 1930s.

World debt is at an astronomical high—one absolutely unfathomable back in 2010–-2011, when I wrote ”Scanning a Fearful Future.” The tremendous fiscal gravity should have long ago brought the great adjustment the writer claims as necessary and inevitable.

In that series, I explained why I believe that crash, that great “reset,” won’t happen during this dispensation. For America and the world to experience a total economic collapse—or even a collapse of tremendous, if not catastrophic, proportion—would mean the world situation would take years, if not decades, to recover. That is, the world would not be anything like Jesus, Himself, prophesied for the time of His next catastrophic intervention into the affairs of fallen mankind.

The Lord said that when He next intervenes, there would be buying, selling, marrying, giving in marriage, building, and planting—i.e., business would be going along just fine, like in the days of Lot, when Sodom was perking right along when the fire and brimstone began to fall.

As a matter of fact, I am convinced the Lord was prophesying that a great, economic boom will be in place when He next intervenes. A great, economic boom is what the economic experts are telling us we are having at present. The Dow Jones Industrials went over 29,000 points on Friday, January 10—something not thought anywhere near likely before the Trump presidency.

Jesus, in giving the “days of Lot” prophecy, wasn’t talking about the time of His Second Advent as given in Revelation 19:11. At that time, two-thirds to three-fourths of mankind will have been killed through the twenty-one specific judgments of God’s wrath upon a rebellious world. It will not be business as usual at that terrible time in human history.

“So what!?” you say. “So what if the world collapses, then takes all that time to recover? The Rapture could be that far off in the future.”

That, of course, is possible. We can’t name the timing of that blessed hope’s intervention. But, we are told to determine the times and seasons—the general time frame of that great event. We are told to “look up and lift our heads” when we “see all these things begin to come to pass.”

What things? What are we to be looking for that will tip us off as to the nearness to “our redemption drawing near”?

“Convergence” is the word we hear most often in prophetic terms. At least, it is the term we who are of the pre-Trib view of the Rapture use. It means the coming together of all the signs Jesus and the prophets gave in the Olivet Discourse and throughout God’s Word, signals that indicate we’re at the very end of this dispensation and near the beginning of the Tribulation, the last seven years of human history before Christ’s Second Coming. We are seeing these many signals proliferating on a daily basis!

Jesus forewarned that judgment would begin falling the very day He is next revealed. That will be when the whole world will know something of unprecedented, world-shaking import has occurred. That will be the moment when Jesus will say “Come up here!”

All believers will vanish from this judgment-bound planet and appear with their Lord and Bridegroom.

The collapse is coming. But first, I believe, so will the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

…

When peering into the New Year 2020, prophecy watchers can easily see developments on the major fronts, the things that include the Apostle Paul’s “perilous times” characteristics pervading the entirety of humanity. America, it’s not hard to determine, is at the forefront of those characteristics coming into view.

Geopolitically, the prophetic progression is even more observable. Matters in the Middle East, with Israel’s primary enemies stirring trouble, are heating up. The Gog-Magog coalition, as we have looked at a number of times, is all but on the march. Russia, Iran (Persia), and Turkey (Togarmah) lead the way in forming that force that will constitute that fatal Ezekiel 38–39 prophetic assault.

The apostate church and the “whore of Babylon” amalgamation are marching throughout the daily, even minute-by-minute news-feeds. The current pope issues statements and declarations of Vatican officialdom almost weekly that sound patently ungodly, even anti-Christ.

Anti-Semitism is growing exponentially, not in the Middle East where it traditionally incubates, but in the cities of America.

Synagogues are invaded and people are murdered. Jewish people walking the sidewalks are attacked and stabbed or beaten for reasons no one can explain. Zechariah 12:1–3 is coming to life as an end-times prophecy before our eyes days and night.

Those are the majors, but the subtle, less easily recognizable developments are progressing geometrically as well.

I will mention but two of these indicators of where this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline.

The first is what I view as preparation for the “hooks in the jaws” referenced by the prophet Ezekiel those millennia ago.

And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. (Ezekiel 38:3–4)

I believe that with the Donald J. Trump presidency has come a dynamic putting-in-place for fulfillment of this prophecy.

America was on track to become more and more dependent on foreign oil—particularly Middle Eastern oil. The previous administration had made oil production and pipeline routing very difficult to develop. The globalist elites’ aim, to my way of thinking, was to successfully bring the US into the configuration for manipulating and controlling this nation’s wealth, largely through these maneuverings.

America, as no other nation, runs on fossil fuels. The globalist controllers, in my analysis, were, in effect, in the process of greatly diminishing the American economic hegemony in this way.

The American voter—influenced by God, I have no doubt—completely disrupted those globalist powers’ blueprint plans. Therefore, we have witnessed an insane rage, led by Lucifer himself.

Middle Eastern enemies of Israel were thrown off their collective evil scheme also. Mr. Trump, through deregulating the oil-production industry to a great extent, has brought our nation, in three short years, to almost full oil and natural gas independence.

This he has done through freeing, for example, the oil fracking industry in order to get at hard-to-reach oil reserves. This has further enraged the ecological climate-change fanatics.

The results are that the major players within the Gog-Magog coalition have seen their economies dwindle to dangerously low levels. Dangerous because their populations are suffering in many ways because of those regimes’ political ideologies and suppression. They can no longer sell their oil because of not having their near monopolies or at least superior quantities of the liquid black gold.

The US is now on the brink of becoming the world’s largest exporter of oil, and things look to get even better in that regard.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Iran’s ayatollahs, as well as Turkey’s tyrannical leader, are hurting as their nations’ populations are demanding rescue from their dictator-imposed plight.

This demand, I believe, might well be the “hooks in the jaws” of the Gog-Magog prophecy.

These prophesied peoples are gathered north of Israel and are looking, greedily to their south for “great spoil.”

Meantime, Israel, as well as the United States, is picking up the slack in petroleum production and distribution that the Gog-Magog coalition is losing. The following excerpt shows, in part, that this is happening.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz traveled to Athens, Greece, on Thursday, where they are to sign a three-way gas agreement with Cyprus and Greece that sets the stage for the exportation of natural gas to Europe…

Before leaving for Athens, Netanyahu announced, “We are headed to a very important summit with the president of Cyprus and the newly-elected Greek prime minister.”

The prime minister added that “we have established an alliance in the Middle East of tremendous importance for the future of Israel’s energy and turning it into an energy superpower.”

The Athens summit occurs in the context of recent strategic talks between Israel, Cyprus and Greece, and the launch of Israel’s offshore Leviathan gas field on Tuesday, the largest energy project in Israel’s history. It is expected to yield 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, paving the way for multibillion-dollar gas-export deals with Egypt and Jordan. (“Israel, Cyprus and Greece Are Signing an Agreement to Build a Pipeline That Will Bring Israeli Gas Across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe,” “Breaking Israel News,” Rapture Ready News, January 4, 2020)

Another signal of prophetic progression is development in the arena of preparing for the “mark” of Revelation 13.

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. (Revelation 13:16–17)

A famous billionaire seems to be at the forefront of fulfillment of the prophecy. The following explains.

For years we’ve been watching as Microsoft founder Bill Gates, now retired from the company he founded, use his billions to give “free vaccinations” to people in third world countries. Now Bill has become a founding partner in another company, this one is called the ID2020 Alliance, and its goal is to give every human being on Earth a digital id. How do they plan on accomplishing this feat? By combining mandatory vaccinations with implantable microchips.

This hybrid of vaccinations and implantable microchips is already happening. (“The ID2020 Alliance Is Setting the Course of Digital ID Through a Multi-Stakeholder Partnership, Ensuring Digital ID Is Responsibly Implemented and Widely Accessible,” https://id2020.org/)

Another news item expands on movement toward use of global identification technology:

The ID2020 Alliance is a digital identity program that uses vaccination to insert tiny microchips into people’s bodies as part of a “digital identity program,” which has already been rolled out for use on the homeless…

Big Pharma is officially partnering with the tech industry to pair “immunization” with digital biometrics, meaning humans will soon be micro chipped, tracked, and ultimately controlled through a global identification matrix. (“ID2020 and Partners Launch Program to Provide Digital ID with Vaccines, “

https://www.biometricupdate.com/201909/id2020-and-partners-launch-program-to-provide-digital-id-with-vaccines)

The new year indeed looks to be one of preparing for profound prophetic progression.

President Trump ordering the takeout of Iran’s top military strategist rocked the world Thursday January 2, 2020. The target, Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, the division of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was responsible for militant and terrorist activities outside the country.

Reports say a drone strike obliterated two SUVs as they drove from the Baghdad International Airport. The man considered to be the most powerful and influential regime leader, second only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a reported seven other ranking officials in Iran’s terrorist organizational structure, were killed.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Fox and Friends Friday morning that Soleimani was Khamenei’s “right fist.” He was all things military and terroristic rolled up into one, Pompeo said. “He was a bad guy.”

US Senator Lindsey Graham said on the same program that Americans should understand that Soleimani wasn’t killed because of past offenses, although many Americans were killed as a result of his terroristic planning over the years. He was taken out because of plans for future acts of murderous terrorism in Iraq and around the world. The intelligence indicated many such terrorist acts were being arranged by the Iranian master planner.  

It is thought by some that Israeli Defense Force (IDF) planners were key in helping Soleimani’s assassination. For this reason, Israel is on high alert for what the Iranians are doubtless preparing in retaliation. Regardless of Israel’s involvement or lack thereof, the Jewish state is being blamed for the matter alongside the United States. Flags of both nations are being burned throughout Iran and other Middle Eastern countries sympathetic to Iranian militancy.

Democrats and mainstream media are faulting President Trump for the action, which they claim is bringing on a devastating war in the region. Fears of what taking out the key Iranian terrorist might cause are summarized in the following excerpt.

Though the U.S. intelligence community has not assessed that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program, there are long-standing reports that it may have stockpiles of chemical weapons, which it could load onto these weapons.…

Non-kinetic alternatives, such as cyber attacks, could be another part of the equation.

If Iran were to pursue any of those options, it would almost certainly beget at least similar responses, though the United States has now shown a willingness to take increasingly disproportionate steps in its ostensible goal of deterring Iran. Major escalatory actions from either side also increasingly run the risk of drawing in other regional or even global actors who have a stake in the situation, such as Russia or China, in some way. There is also the danger that third parties could find themselves caught in the crossfire from future tit-for-tat military or terrorist attacks.

Iran also routinely threatens to blockade the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which it could do using a combination of ballistic and anti-ship cruise missiles, midget submarines, suicide drones, mines, swarming boat attacks, and more. This body of water links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and that serves as a transshipment point for 20 percent of the world’s oil and an equally significant portion of global natural gas. (Joseph Trevithick, “World Holds Its Breath after An American Strike in Iraq Kills Top Iranian Commander,” https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31702/world-holds-its-breath-after-an-american-)

From the standpoint of prophetic perspective, one has only to know of the Iranian regime’s desire to keep things stirred in the Middle East. The Ayatollah is always focused on hatred for and revenge against Israel. America, as Israel’s close ally and umbrella protector, is considered an even greater enemy because it holds the ultimate power to oppose the destruction the Iranian leadership wants to wreak upon all enemies.

The question to consider involves whether this action–killing the chief terror-master in Iran and perhaps the entire world–will cause Iran to push its vengeance to the brink. The brink in this case is an all-out attack on Israel, or American forces that remain in that theatre of possible war.

Mr. Trump, bold as always with his assessments, said that Iran hasn’t won a war or lost a negotiation. By that, I take it that the president supposes that negotiations at this point are not in view and that they would lose a war should it start.

That is almost surely true. As powerful a force as Iran is in comparison to others of the region, it would be no match for the massive force the United States could bring down upon the regime. And, this is considering only the use of the most basic of modern, military weaponry, excluding that of the nuclear sort.

War with Israel, on the other hand, would be much more horrific if an all-out attack came from Iran. All bets would be off as to whether the ultimate weapons in Israel’s arsenal would be used if pushed to that brink.

The one prospect that probes and pulses at the back of the mind is this: Will Iran’s vengeful actions—which are certainly coming—be the catalyst for destruction of its nuclear laboratories? Is the strike that has so profoundly shaken the world at the very first of this New Year the act that will bring fulfillment of the prophecies of Jeremiah 49:34–39?

In my Nearing Midnight commentary of December 9, 2019, I wrote the following in summation of my article, “Gog’s Persian Prophecy Partner”:

A major part of all this that might be of interest to prophecy watchers, in my thinking, is whether the current and building resistance to the Muslim rulers of Iran will bring stepped up activity in fulfilling their nuclear ambitions… They will almost certainly not step up dismantling that program. Becoming a nuclear power, thus a hegemonic regional force, is, I believe, a supernaturally induced desire, placed there by the Prince of Persia, or that minion’s superior, Lucifer, himself.

If the ayatollahs determine their own positions are threatened, might they go all out to complete getting the ultimate weaponry that they think will assure their continuing rulership?

It has long been my contention that something prevents the Gog-Magog force from storming toward Israel using nuclear weapons. At least, that’s the way I read the Gog-Magog forces in regard to their weaponry.

It seems there are no nukes involved—at least, none used by these evil attackers. The Lord, Himself, seems to use something at least as horrific as nuclear weaponry in dealing with those attackers, but their forces seem to be conventional.

As President Trump often says: “Let’s see what happens.”

There are few other than yours truly who more adamantly support this president and what he has done and attempted to do to change America’s downward spiral. Donald J. Trump has indeed been a force I believe put in place by the God of Heaven to, for the Lord’s own good reasons, turn the nation back from the globalist direction in which the minions in high places were moving America.

Mr. Trump, I’ve often expressed before, is not a godly man, meaning he doesn’t display the characteristics of a person who is “born again” from above (John 3:3). He is, as many Christian supporters describe, “rough around the edges.” That is considered an understatement by some. This president can be positively philistine in his rhetoric on occasion–like, for example, in the remark he recently made about a now-deceased political adversary as burning in Hell.

His counter-punching power, as he is accredited with having as no other president in history, lands devastatingly sometimes with, apparently, little regard for whom it’s thrown against. At the same time, President Trump often shows compassion and genuine humility in dealing with people on a personal level. This warm, caring, part of his demeanor is never reported or shown by his detractors, which include the most powerful propaganda machine on the planet–the combined American news and entertainment industries.

They strive not daily, but minute by minute, to display him at his most bombastic, arrogant worst, as they want us to perceive him. The polemics of national and international politics provide these hate-filled false news purveyors (as Trump has branded them) perfect atmospherics for trying to destroy him.

So it is that background for this God-placed, yet flawed, man from which I present what I believe is a dangerous disconnect he needs to correct. My hope is that some of his advisers and friends who are well-seasoned Christians in the study and knowledge of God’s Word will offer corrective counsel to the president.

An article a friend emailed me sparked the writing of this commentary. Its content disturbed him, as it disturbs me. The piece explains that the president of Zambia, a nation where they say everyone is a billionaire, has dismissed a US ambassador because of a profound disagreement.

First, by way of explanation: Zambians are joked about as all being billionaires because their currency is so degraded due to hyperinflation. It takes literally billions of their dollars to live through a twenty-four-hour period. As I take it from talking with those who know economics much better than I, Zambia’s currency situation makes the pre-Hitler days in Germany and that nation’s hyper-inflation look fiscally sound by comparison.

Despite their terrible economic distress, the nation is apparently steeped in the Christian ethic. The nation’s president is said to be a Christian who adheres strictly to their constitution. That document holds forth that homosexuality and all attendants to it is anti-biblical, thus subject to criminal prosecution.

LUSAKA — The president of Zambia is continuing to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to decriminalize homosexual sex acts worldwide, as U.S. Ambassador Daniel Foote threatened to pull aid to the African nation after two men received lengthy prison terms. President Edgar Lungu defended the sentence by declaring that homosexuality is “unbiblical and unChristian,” and “we don’t want it.” Foote has now reportedly been recalled from the country as Lungu refuses to work with him, and a replacement is not expected anytime soon.

“We have complained officially to the American government, and we are waiting for their response because we don’t want such people in our midst,” Lungu advised on ZNBC-TV on Dec. 15. “We want him gone.” (Heather Clark, “‘It’s Unbiblical and UnChristian’: Zambian President Resists Trump Admin’s Push to Legalize Sodomy Under Threat of Losing Aid,”  Christian News Network, 12/26/29, Rapture Ready News, 12/27/19)

American Ambassador Foote was appointed in 2017 by the Trump administration. He criticized and threatened with possible economic sanction the Zambian government for sentencing to prison two men who were caught in the act of having sexual relations. The court found the act was “against the order of nature.” The men were sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Section 155 of the penal code in Zambia states that “any person who…has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature; or…permits a male person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for fourteen years” to life in prison.

The Trump Administration recently launched a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality. Early in 2019, in a move the administration made that gave support to Pride Month. Trump himself confirmed his nod of approval on social media, writing: “As we celebrate LGBT Pride Month and recognize the outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great nation, let us also stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or even execute individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation.”

In September, at the UN General Assembly, President Trump stated: “As we defend American values, we affirm the right of all people to live in dignity. For this reason, my administration is working with other nations to stop criminalizing of homosexuality, and we stand in solidarity with LGBTQ people who live in countries that punish, jail, or execute individuals based upon sexual orientation.”

The Zambian president stated: “We know that there could be people who are homosexual in Zambia. But we don’t want to promote it, because we frown upon it—the practice. Most of us say it’s wrong. It’s unbiblical, un-Christian and we don’t want it,” Lungu told Sky News on December 2, adding that he felt the two men sentenced are “sick” and need help.

“Why should we be forced to do it?… We want to be seen to be smart, to be seen [as] civilized and advanced and so on,” he continued. “If there are such countries which will allow bestiality, let them do it. But not here.”

Ambassador Foote, who said he was “horrified” at the severity of the sentence and at the use of the term “bestiality” in reference to the homosexual act, stated, “Discriminatory and homophobic laws, under the false flags of Christianity and culture, continue to kill innocent Zambians, many of whom were born with the [AIDS] virus. Your citizens are terrified of being ousted as HIV-positive, because of the inaccurate and archaic associations between HIV and homosexuality.”

Foote stated further, “My job as U.S. ambassador is to promote the interests, values, and ideals of the United States… Zambia is one of the largest per-capita recipients of U.S. assistance in the world, at $500 million each year. In these countries where we contribute resources, this includes partnering in areas of mutual interest, and holding the recipient government accountable for its responsibilities under this partnership.”

The Zambian administration asked that the American ambassador be removed for his condemnation of their biblically based constitutional prerogatives. The State Department complied. The US is considering a replacement in that ambassadorship, as I understand it.

So, we see the extreme difficulty in ferreting out what is right, wrong, unfair, and whatsoever in terms of international diplomacy.

The disconnect between America’s return to a moral posture and existential diplomatic exigencies is stark indeed. It is a dangerous disconnect for humankind, to be sure. The Zambian leader and his constitution about morality are correct. But they are biblically correct, not correct in human, diplomatic terms.

This is why, sadly, Donald Trump–nor anyone else–can never make America great, as God views greatness. It is why there will never, this side of the millennial reign, be the kind of peace God meant for this world.

It will take the return of Jesus Christ to make that kind of greatness and that kind of peace a reality. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Some years ago, I was asked to write on an idea for a script for a movie a Hollywood film guy I called friend was thinking of doing. The project never came to fruition because he was diagnosed with an untreated recurrence of melanoma and died within 3 months of the diagnosis. Sadly, it was his own decision to ignore the follow-up exams the oncologist prescribed.

I still think about the project that would have made an interesting movie; I think.

My friend, Michael, wanted my script outline based upon the Biblical prophecy found in the book of Joel.

My note to myself in lamenting the story’s fate is as follows:

Author’s note:

This short story was written for a film that never came to production because of strange circumstances. It is a story of what might ultimately eventuate in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It depicts—taking literary license—the description of a bizarre, horrendous military force prophesied by Joel, the Old Testament prophet to one day descend upon Jerusalem.

The story I wrote began:

Dr. Gershwin Beilah glanced at the large monitors whose images were fed by satellite-relayed cameras on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem. He directed his eyes again to the old Bible, the passages of his attention underlined in red ballpoint.

The scientist read in a quick whisper.

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand; A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.

The story the script was to depict was God’s Judgment during the Tribulation era. A most horrendous force of beastly soldiers will, the prophecy foretells, overwhelm everything in its path.

The Scripture in God’s word telling of that future army says the following:

A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks: Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. (Joel 2: 3-9)

This future army seems to be of super-human capability. Of course, we must understand that it is most likely a force, at the very least, possessed by a demonic influence.

The prophecy refers to it as the Lord’s army, but I take it that it is God’s, only in the sense that He uses even evil for His ultimate good purposes. I.e., the Lord will use this evil military force to, when all is said and done, carry out His divine judgment against the rebels of that last few years before Christ returns in the Second Advent.

It is with my study on this army during the time I was working on the script that tripped my interest in a news article I came across.

The news item was in connection with a secretive military project to create a technologically enhanced army. The article addressed the U.S. military planners’ concerns that the American public would object to such an army.

–Thus, they said, because the public had been subjected to the horrors presented in the fictional moves such as Terminator and others.

The planners  are afraid, so the news story goes, that the public would remember the dystopian effects –the death and destruction—of those movie technological hybrids upon the people in their path.

That news item was analyzed as follows in an opinion piece I found that encapsulates matters involved.

The demonization of cyborgs! Sounds like a satirical Futurama plot where Bender campaigns for robot rights or something.

From Frankenstein to the Terminator, the message is often that technology’s integration with the human body robs the human spirit of its compassion and leads to violence and grave, unintended consequences. However, fiction can also reflect imaginative applications of emerging technologies as well as real concerns with those technologies. For these reasons, fiction can be a powerful tool for engaging the public in discussions of bioethics. A better-informed public that creates and consumes media related to emerging technologies may thus help DOD and its partners forecast ELSI concerns to mitigate problems early int he development of enhancement-related capabilities.

But the Army doesn’t think that the public will find its own way to loving the robot soldiers of tomorrow.

The study group recommended that efforts should be undertaken to reverse the negative cultural narratives of enhancement technologies and leverage media as a means of engaging the public. Across popular social and open-source media, literature, and film, the use of machines to enhance the physical condition of the human species has received a distorted and dystopian narrative in the name of entertainment. More accurate depiction of technology and its applications in fiction and nonfiction media could lay the groundwork for a new generation that sees opportunity for societal benefits in cyborg technologies. [Source: U.S. Army Worries Humanity Is Biased Against Deadly Cyborg Soldiers Because Of Movies Like Terminator by Matt Novak, Gizmodo news, Dec 10, 2019]

Whether human or demonic, or a combination thereof, that future, tribulation era army seems at least on the drawing board and probably is much further advanced in its planning. Like in the case of Babel, God’s own declaration about the fallen minds of man comes starkly into view in regard to preparation for that future time of His wrath and judgment.

“And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” (Gen. 11: 6)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is deeply a part of the scientific mind of man. The super-human army or at the very least, the AI force, is just a matter of time in development. It is a fearful thing to contemplate. But the Lord also has something to say to us about that kind of fear, and about the mind we can appropriate because He lives within the believer.

 “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1: 7)